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About Age of Ambition

From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy—or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don’t see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes.

As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.

In the pages of the New Yorker, Evan Osnos has portrayed, explained and poked fun at this new China better than any other writer from the West or East. In “Age of Ambition,” Osnos takes his reporting a step further, illuminating what he calls China’s Gilded Age, its appetites, challenges and dilemmas, in a way few have done.

— The Washington Post

About the Author

Evan Osnos is a staff writer at The New Yorker, covering politics and foreign affairs. From 2005 to 2013, he lived in Beijing, which is the basis for his book "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Faith and Truth in the New China." It was awarded the National Book Award in 2014. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Recent Features

Read selections from Evan's award-winning work in The New Yorker magazine.

January 29, 2018

Jared Kushner Is China's Trump Card

By Adam Entous and Evan Osnos

How the President's son-in-law, despite his inexperience in diplomacy, became Beijing's point of interest

January 8, 2018

Making China Great Again

By Evan Osnos

As Donald Trump surrenders America's global commitments, Xi Jinping is learning to pick up the pieces.

May 1. 2017

How Trump Could Get Fired

By Evan Osnos

The Constitution offers two paths for removing a President from office. How feasible are they?

January 23, 2017

Doomsday Prep for the Super Rich

December 19, 2016

When Tyranny Takes Hold

By Evan Osnos

Xu Hongci's story can be read as a testament to a man's unwillingness to succumb, or as the description of a moment when "the naked truth, so long outraged, burst upon the eyes of the world," as Albert Camus wrote of Hungary's uprising. But, above all, it should be read as a warning.

April 6, 2015

Born Red

By Evan Osnos

Before Xi Jinping took power, he was described, in China and abroad, as an unremarkable provincial administrator. But, a quarter of the way through his ten-year term, he has emerged as the nation's most authoritarian leader since Chairman Mao.